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Boston Globe
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Suzanne Rand, half of a once-popular comedy team, dies at 75
They built sketches around suggestions from the audience -- settings, pet peeves, objects, occupations, film and television genres -- and performed scripted material. Advertisement Their male-female partnership and their quick repartee led to comparisons to Nichols and May, who met in the 1950s and whose collection of wry, savvy, and satirical improvisations, 'An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May,' reached Broadway in October 1960 and ran for 306 performances. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Ms. Rand and Monteith were thrilled that critics and audiences saw something of Nichols and May in their work. But they themselves saw some differences. 'Nichols and May came across more like neurotics trying to deal with the world,' Ms. Rand told The Plain Dealer of Cleveland in 1984, 'while I feel that we view ourselves as two people dealing with a neurotic world.' In 1978, Monteith and Ms. Rand were warmly welcomed at Manhattan clubs such as Reno Sweeney and The Bottom Line, and at the off-off-Broadway Theater East. Advertisement 'To be sure, some of their material is likely to stick in the mind more than others,' Thomas Lask wrote in a review of their Theater East show in The New York Times. 'My own favorite is Miss Rand's solo encounter with a marijuana-smoking bee, never seen but aurally very visible.' That September, they got the call that all comedians coveted: Johnny Carson wanted them on 'The Tonight Show.' They performed Oct. 5, the first of their two appearances on the show. Their success at Theater East led James Lipton, the future host of 'Inside the Actors Studio,' who was then a producer, to take them to a higher theatrical realm. 'He took us to Elaine's and said, 'I'm moving them to Broadway,'' said Bill Russell, who helped put Monteith and Ms. Rand together and for many years was their assistant, working on their sound and lighting. The show opened in January 1979. The reviews were good, but it was not a hit: It closed after 79 performances. They reprised their act for a Showtime cable special that year and for three public television shows in 1985. One of their fans was conductor Leonard Bernstein, whose son, Alexander, said he invited them to his apartment at The Dakota in Manhattan. 'He was sure they were about to collaborate on something,' Alexander Bernstein said in an email. But they never did. Suzanne Lorraine Eckmann was born Sept. 8, 1949, in Chicago and grew up in nearby Highland Park with her mother, Flora, and her father, William, who worked at companies that produced films for television and later worked for the state of Illinois. Advertisement Suzanne made her acting debut at age 4 as Queen Esther in a nursery school Purim show. As a teenager, she sang in nightclubs and at charity events. She attended Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., and graduated with a bachelor of fine arts in theater in 1971. She was hired at The Second City, the celebrated improvisational theater in Chicago, but she did not enjoy her short stay there. 'I had a miserable time,' she told the Times in 1978, adding, 'It's a wonderful place if you have a background, but you can't learn there.' In 1972, she moved to another improvisational company, The Proposition, in Cambridge, where she met Monteith. They joined forces and, in 1976, were the warmup act for singers Janet Hood and Linda Langford, who performed as Jade & Sarsaparilla. Eventually, Monteith and Ms. Rand became headliners. They broke up in the early 1990s, Russell said, although he added in an interview: 'I'm not sure what happened. I think the gigs just dried up.' In addition to her stepson, from her relationship with Lanny Rand, a restaurant manager who died in 2020, Ms. Rand leaves a brother, William Eckmann. Ms. Rand's work fell off after she split with Monteith, who taught improvisation at the HB Studio in Manhattan for 25 years and died in 2018. She did voice-over work for advertisers and worked with Summer Salt, a group of writers and improvisers who meet every summer in Chatham, on the Cape, helping them tinker with scenes for new plays, screenplays, TV scripts, and sketches. Jeffrey Sweet, director of Summer Salt's Improv to Script program, recalled how Ms. Rand once displayed her quick wit by resolving a problem in a proposed play. When a bride falls off a mountain and dies on the Friday before her wedding, the groom matter-of-factly tells their immediate families that he's going to hold a celebration of life for her instead -- without informing the guests flying in from all over about her death. Advertisement 'The family around him is appalled,' Sweet said in an interview. 'Somebody says, 'When people show up, what on earth will we say to them?' 'And Suzanne said, 'Chicken or fish?'' This article originally appeared in
Fox News
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Gene Hackman was abandoned by dad, kicked out of acting school before finding Hollywood success
Gene Hackman turned a painful childhood and years of rejection into a successful and legendary Hollywood career. Gene – who died from heart disease with Alzheimer's as a significant contributing factor, about one week after his wife Betsy died from hantavirus – had always had a love and interest in movies, admiring James Cagney, Errol Flynn and Edward G. Robinson. "I loved the idea that somebody could convince me that they were a sea captain without being phony. I'd grown up shy—not unusual for actors. They want to show they're more than that—people of import, substance. I think because I was shy, I felt insecure, and acting seemed like a way of maybe getting around that. Getting to be somebody," he told Vanity Fair in 2004. Born on January 30, 1930, Gene was raised in Danville, Illinois, by his mother, Anna. When Gene was 13, his father left the family, an event that influenced his pursuit of acting. "It was a real adios," he told Vanity Fair. "It was so precise. Maybe that's why I became an actor. I doubt I would have become so sensitive to human behavior if that hadn't happened to me as a child—if I hadn't realized how much one small gesture can mean." During a 2001 appearance on "Inside the Actors Studio," Gene recounted the last time he saw his father, becoming emotional as he spoke. "I was down the street playing with some guys, and he drove by and kind of waved . . . " Gene said before trailing off and looking visibly teary-eyed. After Lipton asked whether he had been close to his mother, Gene stayed quiet before clearing his throat and apologizing. "It's only been 65 years or so," he said with a laugh, breaking the tension, though still looking slightly uncomfortable. Lipton noted, "It's not something that goes away easily, is it?" to which Gene replied, "It probably makes you a better actor, I don't know." "I don't advocate that," he added, explaining, "You get in touch with your feelings, and that's what we're here for. I think the more that you can draw on that kind of thing . . . get something out of it." Gene did credit his mother as the individual who recognized something in him, encouraging him to pursue acting. Speaking with GQ in 2011, the "Bonnie and Clyde" star confirmed a story that she once took him to the movie theater and told him she wanted to "see you do that someday." "She did say that. I would have been 10. Things parents say to children are oftentimes not heard, but in some cases, you pick up on things that your parent would like to see you have done." He added, "Unfortunately, my mom never saw me act, so I'm sorry for that, but that's the way it is." Gene's mother died in a fire lit by a burning cigarette, according to a Los Angeles Times profile on the actor. He also said he had "buried the hatchet" before his father died. In his GQ interview, he shared that he wished his mother could have seen his performance in "I Never Sang for My Father," a 1970 drama about a professor dealing with his aging father, which earned him his first Oscar nomination, in the best supporting actor category. "It was a real adios. It was so precise. Maybe that's why I became an actor." "I thought it was a sensitive picture about family and relationships, and I think she would have been proud and happy to see that," he said. "You're fortunate sometimes to be able to do something in life that defines who you are and who your parents may have wanted you to be." Prior to making it big, Gene had enrolled in the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he befriended another aspiring actor, Dustin Hoffman. "I met Gene in acting school, at the Pasadena Playhouse, when he was 27, and I was 19. We used to play congas together on the roof, trying to be like our hero Marlon Brando," Hoffman told Fox News Digital after Gene's death. "And Gene was like Brando, in that he brought something unprecedented to our craft, something people didn't immediately understand as genius: He was expelled from our school after three months for 'not having talent.' It was the first time they ever did that. He was that good." Hoffman continued, "Powerful, subtle, brilliant. A giant among actors. I miss him already." Both actors were voted "least likely to succeed" at the playhouse. "I think the highest I ever got was a 1.4 [GPA]," Gene said in a 1984 interview with KCRA 3, noting he had nothing against the Pasadena Playhouse, just that it's "tough to grade actors." Gene and Hoffman eventually moved to New York, where they also hung out with Robert Duvall, and the trio spent years working jobs and looking for acting work. Gene worked as a shoe salesman, a furniture mover, and a doorman, where he ran into one of his former Marine officers who muttered, "Hackman, you're a sorry son of a bitch," as he recalled to Vanity Fair. Gene had joined the Marines at 16, lying about his age to enlist, and served just under five years before being discharged in 1951. Speaking with Hoffman and Duvall in the interview, the "The Conversation" star described the grind of auditioning. WATCH: GENE HACKMAN'S FRIEND RECALLS OSCAR WINNER'S PHYSICAL FITNESS "No one starts at the top in the theater, and the bottom is a very ugly place," he told the outlet. "It was madness," Gene said of open calls. "A cattle call, they called it. A lot of people would get physical about where they were in line, and who had to go to work, so let me in front of you so I can get the hell out." He once auditioned for Gene Kelly for a musical he was directing, which didn't go well. After Gene sang, Kelly approached him and said, "Nice try. Musicals are hard." The rejection and struggle fueled Gene's desire to continue acting, if for no other reason than to prove doubters wrong. As he said to Vanity Fair, "it was more psychological warfare, because I wasn't going to let those f--kers get me down. I insisted with myself that I would continue to do whatever it took to get a job. It was like me against them, and in some way, unfortunately, I still feel that way." "But I think if you're really interested in acting, there is a part of you that relishes the struggle. It's a narcotic in the way that you are trained to do this work and nobody will let you do it, so you're a little bit nuts. You lie to people, you cheat, you do whatever it takes to get an audition, get a job," he continued. After years of work, Gene landed his breakout role as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in "The French Connection," winning his first Oscar for best actor. He went on to fill even more memorable roles, like the villainous Lex Luthor in "Superman" and basketball coach Norman Dale in "Hoosiers," and picked up a second Oscar as best supporting actor in Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven." In 2004, after decades of work, Gene appeared in his final film, "Welcome to Mooseport," co-starring Ray Romano. In a 2008 interview with Reuters, Gene later confirmed he was done acting. "I haven't held a press conference to announce retirement, but, yes, I'm not going to act any longer," he told the outlet. "I've been told not to say that over the last few years, in case some real wonderful part comes up, but I really don't want to do it any longer." Speaking to GQ about his legacy in 2011, Gene said he wanted to be remembered "as a decent actor. As someone who tried to portray what was given to them in an honest fashion. I don't know, beyond that." Fox News Digital's Tracy Wright contributed to this story.
